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with a wasp embryo inside instead of its own embryo. From the 

 eggs that are laid some produce wingless male and some winged 

 female wasps, the first issuing first ; these then gnaw their way into 

 the gall ovaries in which the femaJes lie, impregnate them, and die. 

 The fertilised winged females then gnaw wider the passage made by 

 the males, and either enter the following crop of Capri figs or 

 mammonis, or if Smyrna fig trees are close by they penetrate the 

 eye of these figs then in proper state of development. In issuing 

 from the Capri fig they brush past the staminate or male flowers 

 which surround the eye, and issue, out of the fig dusted with fig 

 pollen. 



This pollen, in their endeavours to lay eggs on the ovaries of 

 the figs they penetrate, they scatter about and thus fertilise the female 

 flowers. Should they have entered a Capri fig or mammonis, they 

 puncture the ovaries and propagate their kind, whereas should fate 

 have taken them to a Smyrna fig they die, leaving no offspring. 



In Smyrna fig plantations it is therefore important to also 

 plant a few Capri figs or to adopt the practice prevailing in the South 

 of Europe, which consists in attaching two Capri figs to strings 

 and hanging a few in each tree. 



THE SMYRNA CLASS embraces all those figs which are not self 

 fertile and require external agency for the successful production of 

 their crop. 



The varieties of figs dried and exported from Smyrna vary as 

 much as the varieties of grapes dried and exported from Malaga. 

 Most of them need the wild fig pollen and the agency of the 

 Blastopliaga grosser um wasp. 



The Smyrna Fig of com- 

 merce proper stands out Queen 

 amongst them, almost as prom- 

 inently as does the Washington 

 Navel amongst Oranges. 



Two distinct crops come out 

 in the season the first coming 

 out in the Spring out of the 

 previous year's shoots ; and the 

 second growing on the new wood 

 just as the former is ripening. 



Only a few of the first crop 

 mature, the bulk of them drop- 

 ping from the tree when quite 

 small. Like all immature first 

 crop figs, these, although of large 



size, contain nothing but hollow seeds and lack flavour and su^- 

 stance. The ostiolum or eye is closed, and fertilisation cannot take 

 place. 



